EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources OnlineThis weblog focuses on locating, evaluating, discussing, and providing guidelines to instructional resources for faculty and students in higher education. The emphasis is on free, shared, HE resources. Related topics and news (about commercial resources, K-12 resources, T&D resources, educational technology, digital libraries, distance learning, open source software, metadata standards, cognitive mapping, etc.) will also be discussed--along with occasional excursions into more distant miscellaneous topics in science, computing, and education. The EduResources Weblog operates in conjunction with a broader weblog called The Open Learner about using open knowledge resources across a diversity of subjects, levels, and interests for a wide range of learners and learning communities--students in schools and colleges, home schoolers, hobbyists, vocational learners, retirees, and others.

The Wolfram site is associated with Wolfram's well-known Mathematica, but it is not necessary to have the software to explore the demonstrations. Instead, visitors can download a free Mathematica player. I explored a number of the music demonstrations since I have a special interest in synthesizers and electronic music composition; the Jazz Voicings, Piano Keys, and MidiKeyboard Limits demonstrations were instructive and impressive. All demonstrations include access to the source code.

The Wolfram site is a good example of a resource site that combines a free service with advertising for a product; they provide free mathematical demonstrations (for teachers and students of mathematics, and for hobbyists) while advertising software that can be purchased by institutions that choose to purchase the full Mathematica package. ____JH (Thanks to Helge Scherlund's eLearning News for this initial information about this site.)

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"Conceived by Mathematica creator and scientist Stephen Wolfram as a way to bring computational exploration to the widest possible audience, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project is an open-code resource that uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts in science, technology, mathematics, art, finance, and a remarkable range of other fields.

Its daily-growing collection of interactive illustrations is created by Mathematica users from around the world, who participate by contributing innovative Demonstrations.

Interactive computational resources have typically been scattered across the web--requiring specialized programming knowledge that's made them difficult and expensive to develop. As a result, their coverage has long been limited, and progress has been slow.

In many ways, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project introduces a new paradigm for exploring ideas. The power to easily create interactive visualizations, once in the domain of computing experts alone, is now in the hands of every Mathematica user.

Demonstrations can be created with just a few short lines of readable code, powered by the revolutionary advances in Mathematica. This opens the door for researchers, educators, students, and professionals at any level to create their own sophisticated mini-applications and publish them online."

The Capetown Declaration has been under discussion in the UNESCO OER online discussion group (to join the community of interest go to this site) and has also been discussed in several blogs (see Stephen Downes' critique and David Wiley's defense of the Declaration).

My own view is that the Declaration is worth reading and worth supporting (I signed on as a supporter today). However, open educational efforts do extend far beyond the traditional educational settings that are emphasized in the Declaration. One reason that I maintain two blogs about learning resources is because I am interested in furthering the use of open educational resources by academics and students in traditional academic institutions, but I am also committed to furthering the wider scope of self-directed and collaborative educational endeavors that are powerfully enabled by the Internet and the Web.

At the widest extreme, concerns about how OERs and the Web should develop resemble Dionysian versus Apollonian tensions, i.e., tensions between those who want the most freedom, access, and openness and those who want the most reliability, accuracy, and usefulness; those who want to fund developments bottom-up and those who want to fund developments top-down; those who want wide, full, sweeping projects and those who believe in small-scope, local, practical projects. These kinds of arguments never end, because they reflect differences in temperament, plus real differences in needs and desires in different places at different times. The OER polarizations are similar to the contrasts between discovery science and confirmation science or the contrasts between basic research and applied research--neither type of science or research is better or worse than the other, but they are fundamentally different. The current Cape Town debate is useful, because it highlights important differences in educational emphases, intents, and values that will persist. Neither side will "win," but both can contribute. ____JH

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The Cape Town Open Education Declaration

This is a preview version of www.capetowndeclaration.org. The site launches mid-January 2008. Send feedback here.

In Cape Town, this group explored how their separate initiatives could work together to achieve much broader, deeper impact. They explored strategies for opening up and enlivening the world of education. The first concrete outcome of this meeting is the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. It is at once a statement of principle, a statement of strategy, and a statement of commitment.

The meeting that led to the Cape Town Declaration was jointly convened by the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation. Together with others who attended the meeting, the education and information programs of these foundations have committed to pursuing the strategies outlined in the Declaration.

Open education is a living idea. As the movement grows, this idea will continue to evolve. There will be other articulations, initiatives and declarations that will go well beyond the terrain covered in Cape Town. This is exactly the point. The organizations and people behind the Declaration are committed to developing and pursuing additional open education strategies over the coming years, especially in the areas of open technology and teaching practices. We encourage others to do the same.

The Declaration has already been signed by the Cape Town meeting participants. When this site launches officially in January, we hope that thousands of learners, educators, trainers, authors, schools, colleges, universities, publishers, unions, professional societies, policymakers, governments, foundations and other kindred open education initiatives will join us. If you are interested, let us know.